When the four students in Marty’s creative drama class experiment with harmless theatre games, hearts are quietly torn apart and tiny wars of epic proportions are waged and won. Set in a dance studio at the local community centre, this bittersweet play unveils the comedy and tragedy of our ordinary human dramas. Mixing antic sadness and hilarious detail, Circle Mirror Transformation is a beautifully crafted new comedy that became a runaway hit Off Broadway.

I fell head over heels in love with this quirky, tender comedy by American playwright Annie Baker. The story unfolds over the six weeks of a creative drama class for adults. It features a wonderful collection of characters who slowly reveal themselves through a series of improvisational drama exercises. Poignant and funny, this play recently snagged the 2010 OBIE Award for Best New American Play.

Buy Tickets

S

M

T

W

T

F

S

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

Pay what you can

Two performance times

Previews

Talk Back

Stages & Pages

Talkback on Friday, June 1 following the 8pm performance. Members of the Circle Mirror Transformation team will be participating in a talkback with audience members that would like to find out more about the play.

Media

The Playtime Program is a fun and enriching opportunity for children to exercise their creativity, while theatre-going parents get to enjoy a great GCTC matinee. With the purchase of adult group rate tickets ($31.25, tax included) to a Saturday 4 pm matinee, the Playtime Program will provide fun and stimulating supervision for children aged 6-12. Spaces are limited, so please reserve your spots no later than 48 hours before the show.

Saturday, May 26, 2012 – Drop your child off in the Studio Theatre at 3:30 pm to join Mrs. Create for a fun filled afternoon of making crafts to pick up after the show is over. Your child will learn to create with new and recycled materials and go home with several unique crafts! Crafts and supervision are provided by Kids Create, a local business run by an Ottawa resident and mom with years of experience in teaching and art. The class is limited to 24 registrants, so sign-up now with the box office (613-236-9196) to buy your ticket.

Menu

Acoustic Waves Music Series, produced by Blackbox Concert Series continues GCTC’s tradition of presenting a music concert series throughout its season.

Kyrie Kristmanson is a fresh voice on Canada's music scene. Her unique style evokes the various Canadian maritime, prairie and urban landscapes she has grown up in. At twenty-one, she has already captivated audiences in various parts of the country and abroad with her elemental and vocal-driven fusion of folk, jazz and alternative rock influences. She writes powerful, exciting and thoughtful songs in English and French.

Sunday, April 15 at the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre

Doors at 7:30pm and show at 8:00pm

Tickets $15 in advance (available at acousticwaves.ca or by calling (613) 236-5196)

Prologue Series

Nicole Crozier is an emerging artist, currently in her third year of the BFA program at the University of Ottawa. She currently works in the media of both photography and painting. Her work will be hanging in the Lorraine Fritzi Yale Gallery starting May 22.

In regards to her work in dialogue with Circle Mirror Transformation she says, “In Annie Baker’s play, the characters participation in the class exercises migrates from simply acting them out to them becoming a means of revealing each individual’s own personal drama. The characters become intimately more connected as the play goes on. This made me think about how our first impressions of others are only fragments of their actual selves. In a similar way our own self-perception is also fragmented: we will never know how we appear to others. For this reason I thought my work done with scanners in which I distort the surface of the human face would be appropriate to showcase alongside the play.”

A Q&A with Fritzi Artist, Nicole Crozier

1. What is your personal reaction to the play?One thing I did find interesting about the play is it’s psychodramatic nature- the characters personal lives change and transform throughout the play in the same way that they externally transform themselves and their bodies through the acting exercises. The characters start out as flat, 2D and then round out and become move 3D more life like as the play develops and the audience is given more insight into who these people are.

2.Why are you suited to create art for this play?I think as a photographer I am well suited to create art for this play in that it’s storyline corresponds with my own interest in interpersonal relationships, with what personal secrets we are willing to share and which we guard and keep for ourselves. Also, Annie Baker seems interested in how to create a portrait of someone, well of multiple people- how do you represent someone, what can you reveal and what can you not reveal. This is something I am very interested in as well. Whether on stage or in an image you hang on wall, as an artist how do you transform a flat, 2D character cut out into a round, fleshed out 3D person that is believable/ that the viewer can feel some connection with or can relate to. How do you move past the surface and get inside?

3. Which of your pieces work particularly well in interpreting this play?No single piece is better at interpreting the play than any of the others as they all work together as part of a series. Each piece expands upon and confirms the kind of dream-like state/ expression of the other portraits.

4. Is there anything about your medium/ working methods you would like to highlight?I would like to highlight my reason for using scanography to create this series. Usually the photograph is used to capture someone’s image, his or her external look or appearance. I wanted my models to have a much more personal relationship with the camera, something the scanner allows me to do in that it requires the person’s face to be squished right up next to the glass surface. This combined with the fact that the act of scanning removes the person from any kind of context along with the distortions I was able to achieve given the stop and go manner in which my scanner works enabled me to create portraits that are more about the person’s psychological state rather than their appearance.